ARTIST: Giambattista Bodoni

February 16, 2010

Bodoni (1740-1813) was an Italian engraver, publisher, printer and typographer
of high repute remembered for designing a typeface which is now called Bodoni.Giambattista
Bodoni achieved an unprecedented level of technical refinement, allowing
him to faithfully reproduce letterforms with very thin "hairlines",
standing in sharp contrast to the thicker lines constituting the main
stems of the characters.

His printing reflected an aesthetic of plain,
unadorned style, combined with purity of materials. This style attracted
many admirers and imitators, surpassing the popularity of French typographers
such as Philippe Grandjean and Pierre Simon Fournier. Bodoni was appointed
printer to the court of Parma in 1768. Important folio editions by Bodoni
are works by Horace (1791), Vergil (1793), and Homer (1808). The Bodoni
Museum, named for the artisan, was opened in Parma in 1963. source

Adopt a Bodoni Alphabetto restore the full set of more than 600 Bodoni alphabets, their punches and matrices. The Bodoni Museum, Parma, Italy.

I'm not an expert on typography, but I am passionate about it. I have such strong and subjective responses to typefaces that I once asked a business to stop sharing retail space with me because I couldn't bear the typeface they used on their sign. I'm sure my reputation will never be totally repaired, but I just couldn't stand it.

This blog is set in Palatino. Bodoni is not available from typepad. Bodoni is not necessarily my favorite family of typefaces, but it's way up there in the pantheon, particularly in the larger sizes where you can really appreciate the difference between the thick and thin lines.

If you are interested in reading more about typography here is a collection of blogs and websites devoted to the field. It is not complete, of course, but a good beginning: